Left In Lowell

If you are interested in such things, take a look over at Dick Howe’s blog. In the upper right hand area of the front page are several hyperlinks, each related to a subject that you may find compelling. The one I find myself frequently clicking is titled “ELECTIONS.” There you find:

Welcome to our “Politics” page where we combine our two interests, Lowell Politics and Lowell History. This page consists of two sections: The first is a link to our “lowellpols” site which is an alphabetical index of everyone who has held or sought elective office in Lowell during the past fifty years. The second section of the page consists of links to the voting results of various Lowell elections.

I have been crunching the election data for this century and the information Dick provides is very helpful, especially when looking further back than the year 2000.

I was curious about total ballots cast in city elections, particularly the ratio of that total and the number of votes garnered by the elected candidates. To get a rough idea, I plotted three values; total ballots cast, 1st place finish vote total and 9th place finish vote total against time. I used 1st and 9th as a type of bookend, as 2nd thru 8th vote totals lay between them.

Going back 20 years from the 2009 city election, you see:

The graph shows, with notable exceptions in 1993 and 2001, a downward trend in participation or roughly 10,000 less ballots cast across 8 city elections. In 2003, a “bottom” was hit and there is a slight recovery of 1,000 more ballots cast across 3 city elections.

Let’s zoom back to this century: (more…)

That phrase (usually used to jokingly invoke the concept of fraud) has a whole new meaning if 17 year olds are able to vote in municipal elections.

A young person getting excited about voting in a local election is a young voter who will turn into an older voter. Apathy young means apathy later (ask me about my generation and its lack in the voter rolls). I’m all for this Home Rule petition, which has to pass the City Council tonight in order to go before the state legislature. I don’t know its chances once there, but I do know that a mass of young people are expected to show up at tonight’s Council meeting.

Young people. En mass. Showing up for local politics. How could you possibly say no to those shining young faces?

Good luck UTEC and the youth activists of this city, and I encourage our city councilors to vote yes tonight.

You know what to do today. Go exercise your democratic rights. (Update - find out where you vote and see a ballot preview here!)

Having been so busy lately (teaching, business, etc) I haven’t had much time to post about this election. But suffice to say, I am an enthusiastic NO on all three ballot questions. If any of these pass, we will see a regression in our state, and you will not like the results.

Regarding question one (return of the alcohol exemption) and question three (rollback of the sales tax to 3%), the last thing we need to do in the middle of a time of reduced revenues due to economic woes nationwide is to reduce revenues further by gutting taxes. Yes, math still works the way you were taught in school.

Look, no one loves paying taxes. Everyone would love to have that that $1.25 back on your $20 purchase. However, is that worth seeing more teachers laid off, fewer police, and longer lines at the RMV? We’ve cut the fat, folks, long ago. In fact, Patrick has done a lot to reform the state government - including state transportation department consolidation, which Republican governors have been talking about for years and never accomplished. We’ve started cutting the bone during this recession. Further reducing revenues is suicidal. Forget all the progress we’ve made on jobs, green initiatives, and our kids’ education if we have to cut more essential programs.

With regards to the alcohol tax rollback: don’t listen to the alcohol lobby that you are being “double taxed” on alcohol. What a lot of freaking whining! The excise tax is on volume and is so minuscule, it’s hardly even noticeable - if the excise tax were repealed, prices would hardly change at all. Most other states have a sales tax that applies to alcohol, alongside an excise tax. What the longstanding tax exemption on alcohol was, was a gift and a giveaway. Alcohol is not an essential purchase, so why the hell was it exempt? It should be subject to the same tax that is on all other nonessential goods.

On the sales tax reduction - really, you’re going to save about $3 on a $100 purchase. And remember, sales tax is not applied to most essentials in MA - clothing (unless you buy expensive Gucci) or groceries, for a start. A huge chunk of our discretionary spending budget comes from the sales tax. Is that worth seeing hundreds of teachers laid off? Or unsafe streets? The sales tax cut would be worth a loss of $20 million dollars to Lowell alone, if the cut were applied in full to local aid and Chapter 70 monies from the state. How many city services and school programs do you think $20 million would cut? And since it looks impossible, politically, for Congress to pass another stimulus bill next year, we will be losing the ARRA funding, which has been floating much of our state deficit from reduced tax receipts - our state would be further devastated by the loss of over half the sales tax.

On question 2, the elimination of comprehensive permitting to build affordable housing, also has a regressive result. Of course, many people are frustrated with this law and how it is applied in our communities. However, the repeal of it will have a devastating effect on families who need affordable housing. I don’t have to tell you we have some damned expensive housing costs here in MA. It’s a side effect of our leading-the-nation prosperity. The more people in the middle class and up can afford, the more expensive housing is. The more dense the jobs and opportunity, the more the demand for housing. For those who are in jobs that do not have the same level of opportunity, or for those who are underemployed, disabled, or retired with no savings, the availability of affordable housing is paramount to their survival.

Affecting how difficult is it to build affordable housing in Massachusetts means keeping some families out of the prosperity. That’s not what our state is all about. Maybe the law needs reform (and maybe it doesn’t), but eliminating it is no way to do it. It will only hurt some of our most vulnerable citizens. We’re better than that.

So, I will vote no to all three of the ballot questions. I wish we didn’t have to keep having the same damn debate over revenues and taxes - it’s exhausting to constantly have to defend what is undesirable by any human being. Where’s our ballot question enacting positive initiatives?? But as Governor Patrick has always said, we have to decide what we want government to do, and then decide how to pay for it. Ignoring the reality (and basic math) of the situation to vote for something that feels good now but will hurt us in the long run is just stupid.

Get out and vote. No vote, no complaining!

A pic from this morning’s standout. I’ve been up since 5:30am - lit drop and sign holding. Go Eileen!

I recommend reading Andrew Howe’s thoughtful take on democracy versus tyranny, and governing versus the dangerous rhetoric of revolution. As you’ll recall, I’ve already posted mine.

Dick Howe (and his son in comments) have some numbers. Looking town by town (so far), the MA Republicans didn’t really increase (very much - in the range of 3-4%) their voter turnout. So what this means is, they were able to capitalize on Dems staying home. Hardly a Big Red Angry Wave.

If this analysis holds true statewide (and the sampling was pretty wide in Dick’s post and comments), this means a couple of things…first, the Republicans still have a ceiling, and it’s about the same ceiling they had in 08, and given a few numbers Andrew threw out on Facebook as well, not a great deal more than Romney in ‘02 either.

Second is that the big danger for state Dems is not keeping up the enthusiasm of your own people (D’s and D-leaners), which holds some cause for nervousness…but also shows us a path to consistent Democratic victory should we put the work in and run great candidates.

So, get involved and find great candidates!

If I were a Republican, I would be accusing the (actual, known “fraud” or at least shenanigans of this election cycle) pre-marked Brown ballots for stealing the election.

However, I am a Democrat, so I don’t do that. I’m reality-based. He won.

Let us hope that the Democrats take the correct interpretation on this election - first, that an absentee candidate does not do well even in blue states - and second, that allowing things like the popular public option die in the health care reform bill in order to pander to a few Repubs only to have them vote no anyway does not make for a happy electorate that overwhelmingly elected you to actually pass your real agenda.

Fact is, I’m guessing two things really were at issue here. The ongoing trouble in the economy, which as it drags out, fairly or not is further put onto the shoulders of the Democrats; and anger at Wall Street, where the nation has felt the Obama administration seriously fell down on the job. He’s talking now about drastic overhauling of those regulations, and frankly, that should have been on the table a long time ago.

Couple that with the long slow march of a watered-down health care bill, and a sincerely terribly-run campaign (which honestly, should take about 90% of the blame here), and even a cakewalk election can be upset.

The righties are frothing at the mouth at this video from Lawrence, where a witness talks about a poll worker *legally* doing what she should be - providing provisional ballots to people who are come to vote, but are not listed in the voting rolls, generally due to being at the wrong polling place. If this person filling out a provisional ballot truly is not a Mass voter, her ballot will be thrown out; if she is one, it will be included in the totals - once that is proven. This is part of the provisions put into place after the disastrous 2004 election where people were turned away at the polls, the legislation called HAHA or Help America Vote Act.

The only weird thing is that the witness here claims that the poll worker asked if she were Democrat or Republican, which sounds strange except that poll workers in primaries always have to ask this question, and it could be just a habit that the worker mistakenly said it here. There’s no evidence at all that any particular answer to the question would have caused a different reaction in the poll worker. That is if this witness is remembering correctly (this is all allegedly after all).

This idiotic claim of “proven” voter fraud in Lawrence is all over the conservasphere, particularly being drummed up by the likes of Michelle Malkin. It is being used as exactly the sort of outrage generator I mentioned in my last post. Hey, if at first you can’t succeed, whine, I suppose - but if you’re going to complain, at least complain about something real, not made up whole cloth. Good lord.

Update: and here is the other outrage generator.

This shows a woman with copies of the ballot - copies, not absentee, as this post seems to suggest. Anyone been to the polls today? They hang copies of the ballot right up at the front, usually, to show you what the ballot looks like before you head in. Now, so long as this woman is not violating the rules of how to conduct yourself outside a polling station (like distance rules), she has every right to a paper copy of the ballot (you can see line markings on the ballot, it really is just a nonusable copy) and to talk to voters as they go into the polls for her chosen candidate.

And finally…here’s the last news (for now) that they’re screaming about. Note how

Two voters, one in Cambridge and one in Brighton, reported receiving ballots that were already filled out.

In each case, the ballots were voided and voters were issued new ballots.

Right, so…what’s the problem? The ballots were not used, and someone is looking into it to be sure that’s the extent of it.

What are you seeing in your district? Have you voted yet?

Today districts 10-1/10-2 at the VFW on Plain St wasn’t mobbed, but that’s because it never is. However, there were actually a few people (besides us) waiting for it to open, and we were voters #12/13 (if I recall). More people came in after us. I think we’re going to see some great turnout. What that means for results, no one knows, but it probably bodes best for Martha if anything.

There was a snafu voting which meant waiting at the poll, as the check in book and the check out books were not the same (the checkout book was missing a scad of addresses and people) so we had to wait while they figured out what to do with those of us missing from the second book. Actually the VFW poll workers seemed cursed today - they got into the location late and so were kurfuzzeled trying to get ready; and while we were waiting for the check out resolution, the machine that takes ballots jammed, but other than that, it was fairly smooth and there seemed to me to be a LOT more voters than usual at our very quiet district.

Update: The Lowell Sun says town clerks across the Valley are reporting high turnout so far today.

Why Tuesday’s election matters so much. Folks, it only comes down to every policy decision the government ever makes.

If you want a government that employs science instead of ideology, if you want the people’s greater good to outweigh the giant corporations’ interests, here’s a great example of why elections matter.

The Food and Drug Administration has reversed its position on the safety of Bisphenol A, a chemical found in plastic bottles, soda cans, food containers and thousands of consumer goods, saying it now has concerns about health risks.

Growing scientific evidence has linked the chemical to a host of problems, including cancer, sexual dysfunction and heart disease. Federal officials said they are particularly concerned about BPA’s effect on the development of fetuses, infants and young children.

[snip]

Sharfstein said the agency is conducting “targeted” studies of BPA, part of a two-year, $30 million effort by the administration to answer key questions about the chemical that will help determine what action, if any, is necessary to protect public health. The Obama administration pledged to take a “fresh look” at the chemical.

For years, the Bush administration literally put its fingers in its ears and screamed “LALALALA!” while the rest of the world, including Canada, started taking these health risks seriously. There are a host of independent studies (as opposed to the big chemical industry-funded ones the FDA has relied on until now) showing a detrimental effect of these chemicals, especially to infants and children. But the chemistry industry is still saying, “No, they’re safe!” while baby bottle manufacturers abandon the chemical process which uses BPA.

Why is this important for Tuesday? It serves as a reminder why elections matter, and why 60 votes in the Senate matter. For all that is important to you and your family, that Obama was overwhelmingly elected to change, I cannot stress enough that sending this empty suit former male model Republican drone to the Senate will put a death knell in so much of the legislation you care about. Whether that’s oversight of the risks banks take with your money, important legislation to deal with climate change, on regulating the chemistry industry to protect your own kids from harm, you name it, Brown will in all likelihood kill it or cause it to water down so much as to be useless (or worse, a bigger giveaway to Big Business in whatever form).

It’s time to put an end to stupid Republican policies - we had enough of that under G.W.Bush, and look where it landed us. Let’s let facts and science and logic be the deciding factor in our national politics. Vote on Tuesday, and vote for Martha Coakley. Maybe she fell down on the campaign job, and isn’t the grassroots populist go-getter you wanted, but she will be 1000% better than RepubliClone^TM Scott Brown. She’s smart, and she’s on the right side of the issues we hold dear. Brown, not so much.

Oh, and GO PHONEBANK. I want to see you there this afternoon.